


if i could choose my dream

by kaumari



Series: time is the change from stardust to bones [10]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (it's mutual but shh), Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon Compliant, M/M, Pining, as far as I'm concerned, but i kinda forgot how to write established relationships so, technically for ushisaku day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:26:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26859670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaumari/pseuds/kaumari
Summary: in which you are fated rivals living in tokyo, and university is only a minor setback.
Relationships: Sakusa Kiyoomi/Ushijima Wakatoshi
Series: time is the change from stardust to bones [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1889728
Kudos: 20





	if i could choose my dream

**Author's Note:**

> i listened to tokyo by rm for 2 hours straight while writing this. i took multiple breaks to cry. that's just how i am.
> 
> mm i forgot how to write established relationships so it's just pining. gay, i called you by your given name for the first time since we met pining. yada yada, repost from twitter, have a nice day.

Tokyo had never truly meant anything to him, one way or another. It’s a strange concept to think of, should he think of it at all. Tokyo is a city. Tokyo is a city he happens to live in. It’s a city where few people care about him and even fewer mean anything to him at all. Tokyo is a meaningless word in and of itself, Kyoto rearranged, as if that allows it to shed the failure of one generation and assume a pristine identity for the next.

For the vast majority of his life, Tokyo meant nothing to him at all. Of course, this story would be equally as meaningless if that were still the case, even if that’s not  _ quite _ what changed.

Sakusa Kiyoomi wasn’t raised a fool. He knows his days in volleyball, no matter how much they consume his life, are numbered, given the definitive limit of his  _ muscles, tendons, bones, ligaments _ . He knows all of them, running through his arm, down his legs, across his back. There was a soothing comfort in knowing which parts of his body could fail him, he thought, given absolutely no warning. University was, all things considered, the right path for him in the long term. He didn’t need the extra four years entering a professional career directly out of high school would have given him, despite the offers he’d gotten as the top spiker in the nation.

Or at least, that’s what he’d convinced himself. Yes, university is the right path. Stability after the decline of his athletic career is his most important goal for the future. But isn’t it possible, his traitorous thoughts ask, to be a university student and a competitive athlete at the same time? Why would he hold himself back, content to be a collegiate athlete when he could be doing greater, playing better?

Well. Ushijima Wakatoshi had signed with the Schweiden Adlers in the early fall of Kiyoomi’s third year, and he found himself reluctant to leave. And this is Tokyo, one of the most developed and advanced cities in the world—which is about all the praise he can give it—so surely he would still be at an advantage if he stayed. The universities are outstanding, his goals are furthered, and he can feel less guilty about the fact that his decision to stay is less based on rational thought and more so on an ill-advised crush from middle school.

He’d never deluded himself to think this was anything other than one-sided. Hope in these matters is a treacherous weapon, capable of cutting you down with only the absence of attention. He attends his classes and practices his receives, because his second long term goal has always been beating Wakatoshi. Even now, when there’s little to no chance of seeing him again—if he stays in Japan long enough for Kiyoomi to play him, that will be a miracle in and of itself—he makes that his priority in practice. If he can’t consistently receive Wakatoshi’s spikes, then he’s lost their game. It’s been six years, give or take, and Kiyoomi hasn’t folded yet.

Given all of this—the pessimism, realism, cynicism all rolled up into one—when he looks back into the stands of his first college tournament final, it’s a surprise to see Wakatoshi sitting in the front row. Of course, Motoya is there as well, but Kiyoomi was expecting him. There isn’t any time to focus on this revelation, not in the middle of a game. He sets his eyes back on the net and refuses to believe the service ace he gets off the opponent’s libero has anything to do with being watched, hawk-like, by the man he holds in the highest regard.

It’s not the best game of his life. It isn’t the most exciting, and it isn’t the cleanest victory. They went through all five sets, going well past 25 points in three of them. But the final set is a resounding victory driven by relentless endurance, built up over years of being the dependable ace of his Nationals bound team. He doesn’t get the 25th point—a dump by their setter, clean and unexpected with so much attention directed at Kiyoomi and their ace—which is a minor detail in the grand scheme of things, and one he doesn’t care to get caught upon. Motoya will surely make a big deal out of it, but he knows that’s not what’s on Wakatoshi’s mind.

He finds them outside the hall leading to the locker room, making small talk about the match and their respective V1 teams, although the conversation comes to an abrupt halt as soon as they spot him. Motoya, uncaring as ever, throws an arm around his shoulder as soon as he’s in range.

“Well look who it is, the newly crowned collegiate champion. How does it feel, Kiyoomi-kun?” It feels like ash on his tongue, he wants to say. But that’s selfish, isn’t it? He made this decision, so he should suffer the consequences of being physically half a city away from Wakatoshi and emotionally a country apart. He answers how Motoya wants him to, and how he wants himself to.

“Tiring.” Motoya claps him on the back in good fun and laughs.

“The usual, isn’t it? Are you having fun?”

It would be more fun with Wakatoshi on the other side, he wants to say. Kiyoomi’s afraid his eyes will give him away. Instead, he comes out with, “It could have been better,” and leaves it at that, hoping it isn’t too obvious that he’s itching to finish the next three years.

“Aw, you’re dying to play against us aren’t you?” Motoya grins at him, armed with the satisfaction that he knows Kiyoomi best out of anyone else he knows.

“It’s admirable that you’ve chosen to further your education, Kiyoomi-kun.” Masks are a blessing for hiding the way his jaw drops when he registers that Wakatoshi, who has spent the better part of six years calling him Sakusa-kun, has called him by his given name. “But I hope you are also paying excellent attention to your spiking forms in the later sets. You were getting sloppy in the fifth.”

Kiyoomi tilts his chin up, directly meeting Wakatoshi’s eyes, and says “Of course, Wakatoshi-kun. I’ll win next time.”

As it is, Tokyo is only a city, Wakatoshi isn’t going anywhere, and Kiyoomi has never been to turn down a challenge. He finishes what he starts, and this won’t be an exception.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/kaumaridevi) \+ [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/kaumaridevi)!


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